


look how they shine for you

by enragedbees



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Best Friends to Lovers, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, Intrulogical, Light Angst, M/M, tsgiftexchange2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28439310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enragedbees/pseuds/enragedbees
Summary: "Remus could have been anywhere he wanted tonight...but he was here. With Logan. Like he always was. Logan didn’t understand."Logan and Remus have been friends for as long as they could remember. It's nice, getting to grow up alongside your best friend. Even as you both change beyond recognition.
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	look how they shine for you

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: self deprecation, food mention, alcohol mention, brief vomiting mention, mild swearing
> 
> recommended listening: yellow - coldplay
> 
> let me know what you think in the comments! :)

His chest heaved. His heart hammered. His legs pumped, wheels spinning, pushing faster and faster, trying in vain to catch up with the other bike ahead of him.

The clouds shifted and the pavement glowed, baking in the hot air, deprived of the temporary relief of cloud cover. Logan squinted. The sun shone in his face. His hands were sweaty against the rubber handlebars.

Up ahead, he laughed, and the sound blew past with the wind in Logan’s ears. The boy ahead disappeared around a corner.

Logan turned, his wheels skidding against the shiny black asphalt. He jumped off his bike and threw it in the grass next to the other one, not pausing even a second and running after him.

His sneakers pounded the asphalt, and then, the pavement. The other slowed to a stop at the crest of the bridge, the occasional car whizzing past on the other side of the concrete barrier, and let Logan catch up.

He grinned. Two teeth were missing, one in the front and one on the bottom. “I won!”

Logan pushed his glasses up and tried to catch his breath. “Maybe do it without the head start next time.” His smile was full of metal and rubber bands.

He punched Logan in the arm, still laughing, and sat down on the hot pavement. Logan sat next to him, their legs draped over the side of the bridge, arms hanging over the lowest rung of the sidewalk guardrail.

They gravitated towards one another due to sheer convenience. They were in the same grade at school. They lived close enough to walk to the other’s house. They didn’t have a whole lot in common, other than skinned elbows, and grass stains on their jeans, and a desire for companionship. And they both had bikes, and an entire summer to kill.

The river below sparkled, ripples glimmering in the late afternoon sun. It might have been calmer, but dozens of people were out in speedboats and kayaks and jet skis, making waves and mixing up debris, turning the water to a warm weather greenish-brown.

A hot breeze blew past, cool against the sweat on Logan’s arms and the back of his neck. Water lapped the riverbank and Logan thought about how nice it would feel to jump in the water. His mom would probably get mad at him for coming home all wet.

“D’you wanna come over for dinner?” The boy asked. “My brother’s not gonna be home. We can play all his video games.”

“Sorry, I can’t. It’s my stepdad’s birthday. We could go to the pool tomorrow, though.” Logan kicked the air.

“I’ll ask my mom.” The boy stood up. He glanced down with a mischievous grin. “Race you to the park!”

He took off, and Logan was left yelling in indignation and struggling to stand up, almost getting caught in the railing, but laughing as he chased his friend down the sidewalk.

~

“Oh my God, Remus, get down from there!”

Remus laughed, sitting on the top rung of the railing, overlooking the still, gray river. “Relax, dweeb, I’m not gonna fall!”

Logan gasped as he started to slip, scrambling for something to grab hold of, eventually latching onto the support rail at his side. He turned back around, face just a little paler, still smiling. “See? I’m fine.”

Logan breathed through his miniature heart attack. “Would you stop being an idiot? You’re very cool and fearless, now get down.”

“Alright, alright, but I’m only doing this for your sake,” Remus said, already climbing over the railing, and almost falling again in the process.

They sat on the concrete barriers on the side of the road, eating out of a brown paper bag of discount candy. Remus said they were “too cool” to sit on the sidewalk anymore.

Remus was certainly cool, with his detention streak and his popular older brother in the high school and the leather jacket he got for Christmas that he hadn’t taken off in three months. And his perfect, flashing smile, that made every girl in their class ask him for help with homework, and his charming and daring and genuinely funny off-color humor that distracted them from how badly he did with academics. There was no doubt that Remus was cool. Logan wasn’t cool.

But the view was the same from the concrete, so Logan went along with it.

Remus rambled on about something, and Logan listened without having to respond. The wind blew, and Logan crossed his arms, wishing he had something warmer than his button down.

He breathed. It was chilly, but the weather was exactly how Logan liked it. The air was cool and wet, the sky overcast in a sheet of puffy gray, looking as if it could start pouring at any second, but never actually breaking.

Logan realized it had become quiet. He turned, seeing Remus smirking at him.

“Sorry, I zoned out. What were you saying?”

Remus looked toward the river again, still smiling. “Nothing.”

“No, seriously, I want to hear.”

“I honestly don’t remember.”

Logan smiled. “Then what was that look for?”

Remus shrugged, still smiling out towards the water, arms folded. “I dunno, you were thinking really loud and I wanted to know what about.”

Logan leaned back. “I’m thinking at least a little about what the hell I’m gonna do for the project in Ambrose’s class.”

“Oh my God, it was such a dick move to assign that right before the end of the quarter! Is he _trying_ to fail us all?!”

Remus launched into another tirade, and Logan couldn’t help but laugh. He was happy.

They’d come out to this spot countless times. It was the only place they were truly safe, the only place they could be themselves together, away from Logan’s too loud, too crowded house that frustrated him to tears, away from Remus’ house that was so quiet and empty, it drove him mad. They were each other’s sanctuary. And other than the infrequent traffic, this place was theirs.

Remus could have been anywhere he wanted tonight. He could be playing Call of Duty with the other popular boys on the basketball team, or walking around town with any girl he wanted, or possibly even at a high school party with real alcohol, where every upperclassman but his brother loved him.

But he was here. With Logan. Like he always was. Logan didn’t understand. 

“I promise you, Lo, one day we’re gonna get out of this small-ass town full of boring-ass people,” said Remus, lost in another in a series of idealistic monologues. “We’ll get jobs, and an apartment somewhere like California or New York, and –”

“And a cat?”

“Dozens of them! And maybe some dogs.”

“Our landlord’s gonna love us.” Logan laughed.

Remus kept going, painting this incredible future in Logan’s mind, full of a kind of happiness they couldn’t have here.

And Logan was excited. They knew exactly what the future would look like. They had a plan, and it was airtight. All he had to do was wait to grow up, and they could do it. Logan couldn’t wait.

But it was still many years away. Right now, they just had to focus on getting through middle school.

Soon enough, the sky got darker and the candy ran out. The two dug through their pockets and searched the sidewalk and found just enough loose change for a small cheese pizza from the shop down the road. Not ready to go back to either of their homes yet.

The wind blowing over the water grew bitter as the sun set, and Logan folded his arms, wishing again he’d thought to bring a jacket.

A weight fell on his shoulders, and Logan looked over at Remus to find him suddenly leather jacket-less.

“That thing gets way too hot,” he complained. “Hold it for me, will ya?”

Logan smiled and put his arms through the sleeves, the fleece lining still warm, as the first few raindrops started falling.

~

The rain poured hard.

Logan sat, drenched and shivering in the dark, teeth chattering and hair plastered to his forehead. His jacket was now soaked through and provided no source of warmth, and his glasses were covered in water. From rain or tears, he couldn’t tell.

Logan was miserable, but he wouldn’t move. There was nowhere he could go. Maybe he deserved to be miserable.

It was no secret. Everyone saw the way Remus looked at him. The teasing, the protectiveness, the sacrifices and willingness to drop everything for Logan should have made it so clear. Logan couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to realize.

But after everything Remus had done for him, Logan did nothing but break his heart, over and over and over again.

Logan couldn’t see anything but the blurry shine of lights along the bank, and the churning of black water beneath the bridge. It was so dark, and he was so cold. A tiny voice was nagging at him to get up and leave, that it was dangerous to be out, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

He hardly noticed the headlights. The car moved slowly down the bridge, stopping a few feet from where Logan sat.

The driver’s side door opened, then slammed shut. Logan heard a sigh.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Logan couldn’t respond. He couldn’t even look up. If he took one glance at him, Logan would start crying. Then he’d be saddled with trying to cheer Logan up, and Logan was so unworthy of his comfort.

He stepped closer. “Come on, you’re gonna get sick. You get super bitchy when you’re sick.”

“I’m sorry,” Logan whispered.

“Come with me.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Yeah, we know. You say it like it’s not something we’ve known our whole lives.”

Logan was definitely crying now. Maybe he had been already. Remus sighed again.

“Come on, Logan. I’m not leaving without you, and I’m getting all wet now too, so you really kinda owe me this.”

Logan bit his lip. It took a moment to stand, he couldn’t stop shivering. He finally turned towards Remus, and he could barely see him.

But when Remus opened up his arms in invitation, Logan fell right into them.

Remus wrapped his arms around Logan and held him tight. He was so warm, and he was stroking Logan’s hair, and Logan felt so safe. And he felt so guilty, so unworthy to be the one in Remus’ arms. To be the one Remus held this close, or spent all his time with, or dropped everything for when Logan needed him.

He cried into Remus’ shirt, realizing his glasses were no longer on his face, not realizing Remus had slipped them into his pocket and not much caring. He cried silently in Remus’ car, wrapped up in a dry jacket they found in the backseat, heater blasting and radio playing Coldplay, with no memory of how he ended up there.

Remus brought Logan back to his house, gave him dry clothes and some tea from a box Logan had left there who knows when. Remus held him on the couch and kept him warm and safe.

Logan knew he could live a hundred of the best lives and never be good enough Remus. But he let himself be held. Even though he hated himself for it.

Logan was miserable. But Remus held him, because Remus knew Logan needed him, and Remus took care of him, like he’d done their whole lives.

And Logan hated himself for it.

~

The weather should not have been this nice.

The air was lacking in the usual hot, sticky soupiness of this time in the summer. The heat had broken earlier this afternoon, and now, with the sky turning orange and the cool wind blowing over the river, it was perfect.

Logan was already homesick.

He walked down the sidewalk, Remus in step next to him. There was no rushing, no clamoring to get there first. No hurry for anything to end before it had to.

They made their way over to their usual spot, taking a seat on the still-warm cement. The highway behind them bustled with a little more involvement than was common.

Logan looked over the river, deep blue for the first time in weeks and lazily reflecting the dying sunlight. He smelled herbs and dough from the local pizza shop carried on the wind. He laid his hands against the concrete, fingernails scratching at it absentmindedly.

He turned. Remus stared out into the water, a soft smile on his lips, only surface-deep. But when Remus looked him in the eyes and that fake smile grew, Logan knew the intention behind it was genuine.

Logan smiled back but turned away quickly.

Everything between them was different. There was so much he couldn’t say, so much he wanted to say, so much he knew Remus would have liked to say but wasn’t cruel enough to do so. There was so much keeping them apart, and fighting the growing resistance was getting to be too much for Logan.

That wasn’t the only reason he was leaving. He was leaving for a lot of reasons.

It hurt, so much. At the same time that Logan was desperate for distance, craving a change in his relationship with Remus that might solve the distress they were in, the idea of leaving him was so painful that Logan wanted to throw up every time he thought about it.

What would his life be like if he didn’t see Remus every day? How could he live like that?

Remus wasn’t going anywhere. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t have gone with Logan. It was a very competitive application process. Logan wasn’t sure if even he would be accepted.

Remus said he didn’t want to. That concept terrified Logan, but he understood it wasn’t for everyone. Remus was a creative; he didn’t need any schooling to do what he wanted.

The breeze blew through Logan’s hair. All his life, he’d been so excited for the day he would finally escape this town. But now it was really happening. He didn’t know how to feel.

Logan wanted Remus to come with him. He didn’t want to leave him. He couldn’t leave him. What would he do without Remus?

Remus probably would have been better off without him. Logan was always holding him back. Logan was so needy and Remus was always the one having to take care of him. He owed it to Remus to leave. He had to release him.

He didn’t want to leave. No, of course he did. He wanted to leave. He had wanted to leave since he was a kid.

Logan wanted to stay with Remus. Logan wanted to be with him and be happy with him and make him happier than he’d ever been.

Logan wanted to kiss him again. He couldn’t. It wasn’t fair.

Logan wanted to feel Remus’ arms around his waist, pulling him close, sliding his hands under his shirt and over his ribs and the small of his back, and he wanted to run his fingers through Remus’ hair and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t. Not again. It wouldn’t be fair to Remus.

Logan wanted to kiss him and pull him close and breathe in the way he smelled and feel the security and comfort of his arms, and only pull away to gasp for breath, and see his tiny, bright, out of breath smile, and look into his eyes and –

Logan’s stomach turned and his hands clammed up. No, he didn’t want that. Remus was his best friend. He didn’t want anything more.

It didn’t matter that Remus did. It didn’t matter that Logan once again couldn’t get the thought of kissing him out of his mind.

He ached. It was too complicated. Nothing could be done now, anyway. They didn’t have enough time. Logan had to leave with the knowledge that this wasn’t resolved, and might never be. That his best friend was gone. Irretrievable, at least not in the same way. It was over.

“Do you want to go on a drive?”

Logan looked over. “Where?”

“Dunno,” Remus shrugged, still looking out over the river. “Does it matter?”

Logan smiled. “No.”

Remus turned to him. He flashed a grin. Pulled out his phone. “What time do you have to leave tomorrow?”

“Six.”

“We’ve got eleven hours.” Remus slipped his phone back into his pocket and stood up, stretching his arms over his head. He went over to his car, looking back when he got there.

“You coming?”

Logan took one last look at the view – the deep navy ripples running over the water, the golden sky starting to fade to a soft indigo, the houses and storefronts, the glowing red target logo high on a hill across the valley, the lights of the fracking plant in the distance. He took notice of every tiny part that made up his town, the town he’d hated growing up in, couldn’t wait to leave, didn’t want to admit he’d miss.

It wasn’t over. Eleven hours. Not enough time to fix anything. Not enough time to preserve anything. To strengthen anything that would last until he got back.

Maybe enough time to be happy again. For a little while.

Logan swallowed down his heartsickness, stood, and walked over to Remus’ car, refusing to look back.

~

He hadn’t really expected anything in particular. But he didn’t expect to be back here.

Logan couldn’t say he minded. His hometown was beautiful in the autumn.

Logan stood, forearms resting against the top rung of the railing. The river was jade and peaceful. The shining sky was a ringing crystal blue, the clouds wispy and thinner than stretched cotton. The valley was brightened by red and orange and gold blanketing every tree and the grass underneath, each plant in that halfway state between full and empty branches.

It had been awhile since Logan came here. It was too painful to come alone, and it was too painful to come here with him. For a long time, it was too painful to be with him at all.

But then, it wasn’t.

Logan wasn’t really sure what changed. He did, probably. It was like he woke up one day and realized he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Everything was wrong. Logan had been wrong. Or he just wasn’t right anymore. He still wasn’t sure.

But with him, Logan didn’t have to understand. He knew it was right. When Logan finally, _finally_ reached him, it was like he’d found what he had been waiting for his whole life. Everything fell into place.

For now, at least. Logan knew that euphoria wouldn’t last forever. Soon enough the excitement and perfection would burn down, and they’d get calm and comfortable, and they’d have to work hard to maintain it.

Logan was ready for that, though. After so long, so many years of pain and wrestling, Logan finally had him. Comparatively, keeping him would be a breeze.

Logan heard footsteps on the pavement, and turned his head to see him by his side. Logan grinned and his chest warmed. He smiled back, and leaned against the railing, mirroring Logan.

They stayed there together in silence, the air between them that was once full of unvoiced pain and tension now replaced by a quiet and content understanding. 

He was still a little hesitant, and Logan couldn’t blame him. He’d had his heart broken enough in the past to warrant the uncertainty and distrust. Logan was doing everything he could to prove that this was real, that he wasn’t going anywhere. And it felt like it was starting to sink in.

They weren’t in a rush. Logan didn’t know how long it would be before he got to see this view again, if he ever did. He knew he’d miss it, even if he was excited to go.

Even if he came back, it wouldn’t be the same. Leaving marked a separation in his life; a divide between “before” and “after.” He was looking forward to the after, but that didn’t change his hesitancy to leave behind the before.

Logan took a deep breath of the air. It smelled like home.

This was right. He knew that.

The journey was excruciating. But it got him here, and that was exactly what Logan needed, even if it took as long as it did for him to recognize that. Logan would do it all again if he knew he’d end up so happy.

He had no idea what the future held. He had no idea how much of the past he wouldn’t be able to overcome.

But standing here for the last time, as Remus reached over and took his hand, Logan was ready to see.


End file.
